Duck Women's Track Coach Heinonen Announces Retirement at End of 2003 Season
EUGENE - One of only three University of Oregon coaches to guide the Ducks
to an NCAA team title, women's head track and field and head cross country
coach Tom Heinonen announced Thursday that he will retire at the end of the
2002-03 track and field season.
The 57-year-old native of Minneapolis, Minn., opened the 2002-03 season in
his 28th as women's head cross country coach and 27th as women's head track
and field mentor. Heinonen currently stands as the dean of Pac-10 women's
head track coaches, far ahead of 10th-year UCLA head coach Jeannette
Bolden, while his nine combined Pac-10 titles (7 XC, 2 TF) lead active
league coaches, ahead of Stanford's Vin Lananna (8 XC), UCLA's Jeannette
Bolden (7 TF) and USC's Ron Allice (1 TF).
"I've seen 27 years of exciting track here," Heinonen said. "It's been
great being a part of it and watching the program develop from the
non-scholarship days to NCAA championships and beyond. My first office was
above the old gym in Gerlinger Hall - it's a long way from there to the
Casanova Center. We started with Becky Sisley's determination and not a lot
more than that. Melanie Batiste and Debbie Adams were our first two
scholarship athletes, and we've ended up with a ton of All-Americans and
more than a few national champions. I'm especially proud of how many of our
distance runners have kept running after college. They were successful and
still loved running when they finished college."
During his tenure, he is the only women's coach in NCAA history to have won
multiple national titles in outdoor track and field (1985) and cross
country (1983, '87), and he was honored as NCAA Coach of the Year following
all three national championships. Only former Texas mentor Terry Crawford
has won single national crowns in each sport (both in 1986).
His distance squads' consistency stands out nationally, with Heinonen tied
with Wisconsin's Peter Tegan for the most national cross country
appearances among active coaches (24) - a span that has included top-10
NCAA/AIAW finishes on 18 occasions. He has coached 30 cross country
All-Americans, and 53 distance-event All-Americans, including six of the
program's 10 all-time NCAA individual champions in track and field.
Heinonen's first season as cross country coach in 1975 coincidentally
marked the first-ever AIAW harrier championship, with the NCAA cross
country championships following in 1981.
In addition, Duck harriers have won 13 of the 27 regional cross country
crowns and seven of the 16 Pacific-10 Conference titles under Heinonen.
Individually, Ducks have won seven regional and eight Pac-10/NorPac cross
country titles - the most of any school in either championship. In track
and field, he guided Duck squads to consecutive conference titles in 1991
and '92, and six runner-up finishes since the origination of women's Pac-10
Championships in 1987, not to mention nine straight NorPac titles in the
years immediately prior. Overall, his league peers have named him Pac-10
Coach of the Year eight times (6 XC, 2 TF).
"Tom Heinonen has played a significant role not only with his fine track
and field program, but also in the evolution of women's athletics at the
University of Oregon," Oregon athletics director Bill Moos said. Not only
has Tom given us championship teams and All-America athletes, he has also
played an integral role in the overall success of Oregon athletics. We
appreciate his many contributions and wish him and his family a wonderful
retirement."
Just as important as the individual and team honors, Heinonen's squads have
historically stressed balanced depth between the sprint, distance, jumps
and throws disciplines. In the 21 national dual-meet rankings conducted
since 1979, Oregon has ranked top five nationally on 13 occasions - first
twice (1980, '93), second twice (1981, '92), third six times (1979, '82,
'83, '84, '88, '89), fourth once (1985), and fifth twice (1991, '98). In
the dual setting, the Ducks have strung together a 121-21 record, including
undefeated 12 seasons (1979 (6-0), 1980 (5-0), 1984 (5-0), 1985 (7-0), 1987
(6-0), 1988 (5-0), 1989 (7-0), 1991 (6-0), 1993 (5-0), 2000 (1-0), 2001
(1-0), and 2002 (3-0)).
The squad's broad spectrum of talent under Heinonen is further proven on an
individual basis, including 54 conference titles (35 Pac-10, 19 NorPac)
spread among 18 events since 1983; 11 national titles (10 NCAA, 4 AIAW)
among eight events, and 93 All-America honors among 15 events (83 NCAA, 10
AIAW) since 1979.
His list of former distance pupils include former NCAA champs Leann Warren
(1982-1,500), Kathy Hayes (1984-10K), Claudette Groenendaal (800-1985,
1,500-1984), Annette Hand (Peters) (5K-1988) and Melody Fairchild (indoor
3K-1996). Groenendaal still owns the collegiate record in the 800
(1:58.33); Hayes owns the fastest ever 5,000 meters during the outdoor
collegiate season (15:23.03); and Warren ranks second all-time in the 1,500
(4:05.88) among collegians. On the all-time U.S. lists, former Ducks rank
among the top 10 in the 800 (Groenendaal, 10th, 1:58.33), 3,000 (Peters,
ninth, 8:41.97), steeplechase (Lisa (Karnopp) Nye, second, 9:49.41), 5K
(Peters, fourth, 14:56.07), and 10K (Peters, fourth, 31:30.89).
Heinonen also guided the post-collegiate career of (Hand) Peters, a 1992
Olympian in the women's 3,000. The former American record holder at 5,000
also qualified for U.S. World Championships teams in 1991, '93 and '97.
Other Duck distance runners that went on to compete in the Olympics
included marathoners Lisa (Martin) Ondieki - second in 1988 - and Cathy
(Schiro) O'Brien, while Fairchild and Rosa Gutierrez also made World
Championships appearances in the 5K in 1997 and marathon in 2001,
respectively.
Away from collegiate circles, USA Track and Field has selected him as head
coach for the U.S.-Great Britain dual meet in 1985, for the West Team in
the 1983 National Sports Festival, assistant coach for the West Team in
1982, and junior women's coach for the 1990 World Cross Country
Championships. Before it withdrew its sponsorship, he was also tabbed to
coach the U.S. squad at the 1993 Goodwill Games. Most recently, he has
served as one of two college-coach clinicians at USA Track and Field's
National Junior Elite Camp for female distance runners and their coaches
from 1988 through 2002.
His administrative and organizational expertise was tapped as co-meet
director of the 1988, '91, and '96 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field
Championships at Hayward Field. He also coordinated the seven cross country
races during the 1989 World Veterans' Championships in Eugene.
As an athlete, Heinonen was an equally successful All-America distance
runner at the University of Minnesota. After claiming the Big Ten 3-mile
title in 1967, he took fifth among Americans and six overall in the
national championships 10K later that summer. He graduated from Minnesota
with an undergraduate degree in Latin America Area Studies in March, 1968,
the day he competed in his first of three World Cross Country Championships
(also 1969 and '70).
Among other post-collegiate accomplishments, the 1969 AAU Marathon champion
was an Olympic Trials marathon qualifier in 1968 and 1972, and ended his
post-collegiate career with a win in the 1975 Seaside Marathon. He made his
final competitive foray at the master's level in 1987, running in the
Legends Mile (4:43) in the Oregon Twilight meet, and in the national
masters championships (5K, 15:58) held at nearby Silke Field in
Springfield. His personal bests were 8:55 (2 miles), 13:40 (3 miles) and
28:51 (6 miles).
Heinonen accepted the Oregon post as the Ducks' fourth women's track and
field head coach, following Bob Ritson (1975, '76), Ron Brinkert (1973,
'74) and Lois Youngen (1972) with all the previous predecessors campus
physical education instructors .
Heinonen initially served as head cross country coach and assistant track
and field coach under Ritson during the 1975-76 season, and received his
master's degree that spring in physical education. The following fall in
1976, he assumed head track duties and started his doctoral work, and in
the fall of 1977 became the program's first full-time coach. Prior to
officially joining the University of Oregon Department of Intercollegiate
Athletics in April 1977, women's track and field was overseen by the campus
physical education department.
Prior to his move to Eugene, he served one year in the Peace Corps from
1973-74, with part of the duration in Chile.
"It's been great, but the recruiting has worn me down," Heinonen said.
"Spending every night on the phone or feeling guilty if I'm not on the
phone is not fun. I'll be 58 next July. In the State System that's a good
time to leave. Janet (my wife) and I have our health now, and we want to
enjoy it. I have lots of energy and there's plenty of volunteering that
needs to be done. I'm going to do some, but we're going to travel too.
"First, though, we've got a good, enthusiastic cross country team that's
just now exploring its talents. We'd sure like to get to the NCAA's this
season. And our track team is loaded with talent. It's the best we've had
in years. We have 15 seniors, we've got six all-Americans and a bunch of
returning Pac-10 scorers. I'd like to make this last year for me a really
good one for our athletes."
The Duck cross country squad opened the 2002 season last weekend with an
eighth-place finish in the Roy Griak Invitational against a field that
featured eight top-30 teams, two of which the unranked Ducks edged. During
the most recent 2002 track season, the Ducks finished 27th in the NCAA
Championships and sixth in the Pac-10 Championships, their best finishes
since 1995 and 1999, respectively, to go along with a 3-0 dual record.
Individually outdoors, Duck tracksters scored three Pac-10 runner-up
crowns, four All-America honors, five NCAA invites, and three automatic and
11 NCAA provisional marks. Indoors, the Ducks added one All-America honor
and another NCAA qualifier.
Heinonen and wife Janet, a former University of Oregon
athletics publicist, are the parents of children Erik, a redshirt
freshman for the men's harrier squad this fall, and Liisa.